Towards a Strategy

2012 – 2017

1. Our Stories

Ruth from Intag, Ecuador

“The partnership with Engineers

Without Borders UK has turned into

an opportunity for us to give the

people we work with hope.

The greatest achievement is that the colleagues have

come from the UK not only with their professional

studies and technical background, but that they are

also humanitarian. They are capable of integrating with

the population, sharing their skills, sharing their

manners, sharing their accommodation and their food.

If the volunteers were not here a lot of the population

would not have water. But more than this, we have

seen an important leap by having two different

cultures brought together. The leap has been due to

good will: the volunteers are here because they want

to do it. They are an example. If they were not here,

the people would not have a close knowledge that on

the other side of the world – at such a distance – there

are other people in solidarity.

So the people here have gained the incentive to

promote development themselves. I believe this is a

fundamental sign of being alongside the people – not

only looking at the technical aspect but also the human

aspect, and then sharing with the children too. The

people are seeing that their situation is changing.”

Chris from London, UK

“I did a few EWB-UK courses and

then an EWB-UK placement. Looking

back, I can see what a great step it

was into sector.

I heard about EWB-UK through a training organisation

in London. I was volunteering at their offices helping on

IT. A couple of people there had been involved and told

me about the branch at my university.

I really wanted to get into humanitarian relief and find

a way to use my degree for something I was passionate

about. It was the global perspective that kept me going

through my degree – it gave me the reason to study

engineering. In my final year, I did research on joining

bamboo struts. Which, it turns out, isn’t easy.

I loved my placement. It gave me my first proper

chance to work in Africa. Afterwards, I applied to a

humanitarian agency’s internship scheme – with a little

help from a reference from EWB-UK.

I worked in London, Kyrgyzstan and Ivory Coast. I am

now working for the agency in Somalia and Kenya as

their South Central Somalia Water, Sanitation and

Hygiene Co-ordinator. I spend time working on water

technology – and it’s pretty clear to me the life-saving

and life-changing power it has. I really love it here.”

Bitrus from Dadiya, Nigeria

“I was born in Dadiya, a rural

community in Nigeria, but I was able

to go to Lagos for study. When I

finished, I came back home to help

improve the lives of the people in my

community.

I worked as a subsistence farmer but I volunteered

with our community organisation. They contacted

EWB-UK for help with a rural access road and the

volunteers that came taught me how to do road

assessments and feasibility studies.

I now know which places are good for a ring culvert

and which places are good for a box culvert using

engineering techniques, and these skills remain with

me even after the volunteers have gone. I gained a lot

of respect from within my community from having

these skills and I am now the chairman of the

organisation. Dadiya now has a health centre, a small

wind turbine and we are growing livelihood activities,

in addition to the original road access work.

The volunteers had to learn Nigerian patience and we

encouraged them to be strong when they found the

conditions difficult. Many people’s lives have been

improved as a result of our work together and I

appreciate the skills I have gained.”

Katie from Cheshire, UK

“I came across a newly formed

EWB-UK branch when I was

studying engineering at university

and got involved with practicals like

building a wind turbine, making

bio-diesel and working with a local community building

a rainwater harvesting system and sand filters.

I started outreach at my branch, running lots of

workshops in schools and community groups, and then

in my final year I became the president. I got an EWB-

UK placement in Pune in India, working on GIS

mapping of slums. I continued earlier work to improve

data management and quality assurance, and set up

an easy way for staff to view and share maps.

I became a placement manager and then took on the

role of Placements Co-ordinator on the EWB-UK

National Executive. I had to lead a large team, make

informed decisions and controlled a substantial budget.

Throughout this time I was working for a big

engineering consultancy and I was able to help my colleagues become more aware of global issues. I have picked up all these skills from EWB-UK, and I feel them kicking in all the time. How do people do without it?!

I now want to do more international engineering work. I can’t pay EWB-UK back, so I’ll try to pay it forward.”

2. Why Development It is abhorrent that so many people live and die in poverty today.

Development is about creating a world where everyone has the opportunity to live safe, fulfilling,

creative and rewarding lives. It is about the defeat of poverty. And it is about more than merely living;

it is about everyone being able to flourish in their lives. Today, many people lack the basic capabilities

and freedoms to begin to determine their own development, and to help others along the way as well.

Development considers the path that we take towards the future. We have learned that the path of

development we are on is the cause of many of the challenges we face. Development starts with the

context we live in, and we now know that our local and global contexts are interdependent. We need a

great transition to new paths of development that are equitable for everyone, everywhere, for all time.

Nowhere is the challenge more complex and more urgent than where the needs are greatest but the

resources – including the number of engineers – are most limited. People face significant barriers to

development. We want to make sure that access to engineering and to engineers is not one of them.

3. Why Engineering Engineering drives human development.

Engineering is about more than technology. Engineering is the creative application of science to solve

problems for people. Engineers build capabilities, communities and countries, and play an important

role in designing and managing projects and organisations. They deal with systems and with finding

systemic solutions to complex problems. Engineering is everywhere and is fundamental to society.

The problem is that today engineering is too often pursuing technology for technology’s sake –

investing the time and talent of engineers in advancing advanced technologies that exacerbate inequality.

Or which make marginal improvements for profit, rather than massive improvements for people. And

we now know that engineering is causing many of the world’s problems, yet still seems slow to change.

Engineers are good at things. Engineers need to be good at people too. By taking the time to

understand context, by embracing complexity and by acting as mediators between people and

technology, engineers will be able to understand technology’s impact and to influence it for the better.

We want to make sure every engineer has the opportunity to learn about and to create change.

4. Why Young People Young people hold the promise of the future.

Young people are the reason that Engineers Without Borders UK exists. Our organisation is just one

expression of the desire for change that young people want to see in the world. In the UK, today’s

young people have incredible opportunities; they have never known a world without the Internet or

affordable international travel, they have news stories and social networks informing them about every

corner of the globe, and regularly have the opportunity to volunteer. Their world view is global.

Young people are radical, iconoclastic, inspiring, intensely practical, open and open-minded, can learn

quickly, and are dynamic, willing and able to take risks and are rooted in communities where they live.

They share ‘beginner’s mind’ – and all of the strengths and weaknesses it brings. As young people

learn of engineering’s role in development, they become more deeply motivated to learn about it and

to engage in it. They begin on a journey that affects the decisions they make in their lives and careers.

With more young people in education than ever before, there is a phenomenal opportunity to explore

new paths of development and to help solve the problems of engineering, development and the world.

We want to help young people to create lasting generational change that is resilient in the face of

unprecedented challenges and opportunities. We want to make sure that they have the opportunity to

learn about the future they are inheriting and can share ideas and enthusiasm about how to change it.

5. Challenges

Today:

World population of 7 billion12

884 million people lack access to clean water1

2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation1

Over 1.3 billion people lack access to reliable electricity1

1.5 billion people have inadequate shelter3

1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day4

Over 1 billion people are undernourished4

7.6 million children under the age of 5 die every year from poverty-related causes6

828 million people are living in slums7

Nearly 2 million people die every year from indoor air pollution8

72% of the world’s poor live in middle-income countries10

By 2030

World population of 8.6 billion12

1.26 billion people living in what are now the least developed countries1

5 billion people will live in urban areas14

Over 2 billion people will be living in slums15

3.9 billion people will be living in areas of severe water stress16

The world will need at least 50% more food, 45% more energy and 30% more water1

Under a business-as-usual scenario, 2 planets will be needed to support the world’s population2

6. Opportunities

90% of the world’s engineers work for richest 10% of the world’s population3

51% world’s population are under the age of 2519

$93 billion a year is needed to address infrastructure in Africa. 11

More than 50% of Africa’s improved growth performance is because of new infrastructure11

9 out of 10 young people want the opportunity to work abroad, rather than just travel9

79% of employers say knowledge and awareness of the world is important, whereas 74% say

degree classification is important18

93% of young people think it is important to learn about issues in different parts of the world21

67% of students see international outlook for science, technology and engineering as unimportant9

More international students enrolled on UK courses are based overseas than in the UK20

55% of full time students have volunteered in the last 12 months22

83% of students acknowledge volunteering for enhancing their skills and employment chances17

39% of non-volunteers would welcome volunteering connected with their course or career17

87% of young people agree they want careers that add purpose to their lives but only 35% believe

this happens in reality, leaving 59% searching for something more from their jobs23

7. Vision

“A world where everyone has access to the engineering they need for a life free from poverty.”

Many people in our world face severe challenges even just to live, and we see that access to

engineering, engineers and engineering know-how can help them overcome many of these challenges.

We want to see a world without poverty and without barriers to human development – where everyone

can meet their basic needs, can live in dignity, can realise their potential, can create and can flourish.

8. Mission

“To empower human development through engineering.”

We remove barriers to development. There are many barriers to defeating poverty, but we think that

the lack of access to engineering should not be one of them – and so this is the mission we commit to.

We want to empower everyone in their own development journeys, with changes to education, with

new opportunities, with improvements to technology and with inspirational leadership.

9. Outcomes

We will create impact in four new ‘dimensions’ of change:

Technology, Education, Opportunity and Leadership. All our

activities will look to create change across all four dimensions,

so that our members and partners are more fully empowered.

10. In five years’ time, we will have:

1. Awakened greater attention to global challenges and opportunities

2. Educated engineers about international development

3. Excited and informed people about the role and impact of engineering

4. Empowered engineers to respond to global challenges

5. Enabled new paths of development that are appropriate, sustainable and inspirational

6. Transformed the engineering profession into an enabling environment for positive change

7. Relieved poverty in the communities where our international partners work

8. Enhanced the capabilities of people, communities and partners

9. Discovered and evolved technologies and approaches that address barriers to development

10. Unleashed passionate, talented and transformational leaders

11. Massive Small Change

‘Massive Small Change’ is our new organising philosophy and the key to our effectiveness and impact.

Our heritage as both a student-led charity and as an international development organisation now

combine, and find new expression: Engineers Without Borders UK is a massive small change

organisation that empowers thousands of new engineers to remove barriers to development.

Our world faces huge development challenges affecting billions of people. When the scale of the

challenge is the challenge, we need to respond with massive small change. International development

has to be people-sized if it is to be effective, sustainable and beautiful in its efforts to defeat poverty.

But the challenges we face call for phenomenal and systemic change on a massive scale. So we want

to inspire and empower everyone to take on these challenges in their own lives. If we get massive

small change right in our own organisation, and encourage it within our partners, then the success of

an idea, approach or solution will spread itself further and create even bigger impact.

Massive small change our ‘big idea’ and is

designed to help us always think about

the way we work. It will help us to

achieve our mission and vision by

enabling us to always grow, to

continuously adapt, to be radical and to

respond to emerging ideas. It will help us

to allocate our resources very efficiently,

effectively and elegantly (giving us more

‘bang for the buck’) by guiding us to the

small changes needed for a massive

impact. It will help us to value

complexity, look at the wider social,

political, environmental and economic

issues that surround technology, and to

build social capital through responsive

and resilient partnerships.

12. Structure

Massive small change is a new name for a culture and approach that has been the key to the success

of Engineers Without Borders UK over the last ten years; we have an organisation that is, even in

itself, also a movement. As a movement, we have to keep growing to be successful. We have to grow

our activities, partners, members, funding, resources, knowledge, recognition, understanding and

ideas. We do this so that our members and partners can continue on their journeys towards a world

free from poverty. Therefore, how we are going to grow becomes key.

Growth could mean more staff, more donor-funded programmes, more volunteers to help staff get

more done, and more members to help us campaign and fundraise more. We would build a highly-

effective, well-engineered ‘normal’ organisation alongside all the others in the development sector.

But we choose growth to be through an enabling environment where members become volunteers who

are empowered as decision-makers, fully capable of working with our partners, and who can develop

new ideas, activities and programmes from the grassroots. We will build a team of carefully-selected

staff who support our volunteers, and develop systems to support volunteers’ learning-by-doing.

Engineers Without Borders UK will be a decentralised, open, collaborative and complicated-to-describe

organisation – one that is difficult to compare with others. Our ‘on the ground’ results may be harder

to define and to find, because we will work through our members and partners – involving them not

Ideas for creating Massive Small Change:

To help make real our massive small change philosophy

we will try to keep the following ideas in mind:

Do everything in partnership with others.

Only do things that scale by at least a factor of six.

We don’t just do technology, we do engineering.

We seek people for projects, not projects for people.

We believe in the spirit of volunteering.

Convergence of interest, not conflict of interest.

Empower everyone.

Openness is how we grow.

Grow influence, not authority.

just in what we do but in how we do

it. Traditional detailed plans and

structures will be less important to

us than strategy, learning and fast

feedback. This may make it harder

for us to begin engaging with more

traditional structures but we think

that by focusing on the small and

people-sized we will build massive

long term influence, will ensure that

we play to our strengths and will

help us not to deviate from our

important niche of engineering,

development and young people. Our

success will speak for itself.

Our staff team will have a culture of

catalysing continuous emergence

and mass collaboration rather than

of providing command-and-control.

We want to give our volunteers the

chance to run an international

development organisation, and to

run it well. So we will support our

volunteers by creating an enabling

environment where they can use

their higher skills and be the

decision-makers – with staff to both

to guide their work and staff to

support their work.

Under this new strategy, we are

going to design formal structures

(which will provide us with stability,

core functions that enable activity

and with legal compliance that

maintains our public license to

operate) that support emergence

(which will provide us with novelty,

creativity and flexibility), rather than

just tolerating it. We think that these

structures will encourage learning,

collaboration and participation. They

will help us to be more agile,

responsive and innovative so that we

can nurture the potential of our

partners and members in a wide

variety of directions and in complex

contexts – whilst also making sure

that the quality of everything we do

is outstanding. Indeed, our new

structures will help us to practice

what we preach about our values in

good development work.

13. Structure for enabling Massive Small Change:

Our six new department heads will empower our volunteers so that they

can do so much more, and so that our work is coherent both within and

across all activities. They will encourage freedom within constraints, and will

be constantly seeking the right balance in the interdependent relationship

between creativity and stability, between top-down and bottom-up.

Then, our flexible and scale-able operations team will provide services such

as finance, reporting and IT development – delivering the sort of day-to-day

investment in the organisation that we need to thrive, but that our

volunteers may not be able to sustain.

In between these staff, we will have our volunteer decision-makers. And, as

our volunteers change and as we grow, having volunteers here will help us

to reduce the risk of staff ‘taking over’ the organisation – of becoming too

rigid to deliver mass collaboration and massive small change. Staff will help

our volunteers to learn new leadership skills through training, experience

and learning-by-doing. They will provide the activation energy needed for

volunteers to think at new levels, whilst also helping them to manage their

own expectations. We want volunteering in Engineers Without Borders UK

to be inspiring, educational and rewarding. We want volunteering to unleash

their passions and to be transformational. We want everyone to be a leader.

We will continue to regionalise our structure. Developing our internal

capacity beyond our main office will bring us closer to our partners, our

members and all of our volunteers (and bring them closer to each other),

and will allow us to give them more support and to be more responsive; our

grassroots need a root structure if we’re going to support their growth. It

will help us to find and understand new partners. We will use our regional

structure to inform and improve our internal strategies, signposting,

communications and reporting. Not least, it will help us to maintain the

feeling of belonging and unity within our organisation that is so fundamental

to the sense of being part of a movement.

Our new structure will help us to perform more effectively as an

organisation. This is not just that we will be able to keep motivating people

to work for us for free. We think that it will encourage the individual

responsibility of the volunteer without it being a burden, and the collective

responsibility of the team without it being bureaucratic. It will help us to do

more activities more effectively, to finish things rather than just ending

them, and will diminish tension between the formal and the emergent.

14. Partnership

Our partners come in all shapes and sizes. Our international partners may be small community-based

organisations, local social enterprises, education institutions, local government teams, national non-

governmental organisations, UK-based international organisations or major international aid agencies.

Our UK partners may be informal groups of experienced practitioners, schools, colleges, university

departments, research groups, donors, non-governmental or not-for-profit organisations, coalitions,

professional bodies, local firms, service providers, consultancies or major multi-national companies.

What we look for in our partners is a very special convergence of interest where our shared priorities

coincide to better face identified challenges or to make the most of new opportunities. Whoever they

may be, we will work to understand them and work with the communities they serve to ensure that we

can bring something unique that makes a difference. Simply put, Engineers Without Borders UK and

our partners are on the same team, are on the same journey and are working together for change.

In focusing on partners, we are focusing our

outcomes in our theory of change around them.

Though this may mean that we will be one step

removed from direct impact in the fight against

poverty, it will also mean that we can have

greater impact and can celebrate successes

together. We will be able to learn more, and be

able to share learning from partners from

different countries and different sectors.

By viewing other organisations that are active

in our three key areas (of development,

engineering and young people) as opportunities

for collaboration rather than threats in

competition, we will encourage potential

partners to see us in the same way. We will be

able to enhance our strengths and overcome

our weaknesses and, by remaining open, be

better able adapt to emerging risks and

opportunities. We will be able to participate in

wider change. In effect, Engineers Without

Borders UK will itself be a volunteer – one that

is able to help and is keen to learn.

Regionalising our work will bring us close to our partners. We will consider carefully which regions, and

therefore which partners, we will focus on and then develop regional strategies with their assistance.

We are aiming for multi-faceted, responsive partnerships that lead to lasting impacts. Further,

regionalisation will help us to begin better engagement between, say, UK engineering firms and

community-based organisations, or between UK universities and developing country groups. We will

build coalitions and our communities of practice by bringing our partners together, and not only those

with similar interests but also where interaction between diverse partners could lead to innovation.

We must remain vigilant to the risks or partnership. We could find ourselves feeding development

organisations that stifle innovation, encourage dependency or are otherwise supporting the status quo.

We could find ourselves becoming a fig-leaf for organisations – such as professional bodies, companies

or university departments – that want to look good but who resist systematic change, or resist making

development a normal part of engineering practice. Or we could find ourselves selecting partners

because they make us look good and give us credibility, or avoiding potential partners that offer huge

opportunities for change because they would make us look bad. The best way to mitigate these risks

will be through early engagement and systems to support continued understanding and participation.

15. What we value in partnerships:

Active Partnerships: long-term relationships

which are multi-faceted, responsive and

transformational.

People Participation: enable and encourage

participatory change in all activities.

Holistic Engineering: working across disciplines

to consider technology in its context, and

engineering without its borders.

Small Footprint: minimising impact on the

environment, at the very least.

Appropriate Technology: using technology that

is ‘low-risk’ in its context.

Good Practice: maintaining professional

standards and approaches we can be proud of.

Diversity: representation of and support for a

wide range of stakeholders, views and ideas –

and valuing the complexity that arises.

19. The international Engineers Without Borders family:

We see ourselves as part of the global movement of organisations that share the name ‘Engineers

Without Borders’ and its translations. We have already established formal partnerships with some of

our sister organisations, and regularly engage with many others on an informal basis as friends.

We commit to being an active participant of the international EWB movement, and we will allocate

resources towards efforts to establish, and then to join, a formal international network or family.

We have found that supporting EWB-UK branches in the UK is a very effective way of delivering

sustainable impacts, particularly in the formation of new engineers. In the same way, we may begin

to partner with EWB groups in developing countries alongside our other international partners.

18. Corporate partnerships:

We have had three main priorities for our

relationships with companies: sponsorship;

staff awareness; and promoting membership.

We have been guided by the fundraising

opportunity and by our ethical policy.

Under this new strategy, we will build on our

previous approach and take our relationships to

a whole new level: we want our sponsors to

become a collaborative community for creating

massive small change, alongside our other

partners. We want to move towards corporate

partnerships in the truest sense, and to help

them make more of their tremendous capacity

to develop communities, cities and countries –

with the right staff who have the right skills.

‘Doing the right thing’ is defined by standards

that emerge from belonging to a community.

Through corporate partnerships with carefully

selected firms that share our priorities, we will

genuinely be able to belong to the same team.

Further, we could broker the capacity of our

corporate partners to enhance the capacity of

our international partners.

New volunteer ‘champions’ working at the

offices of corporate partners will help us to

understand them, help them to understand us,

and help to explore and achieve these aims.

16. International Partnerships:

The interaction between the priorities of our

members, donors and international partners is

vitally important to get right. It is a defining

issue for our organisation, particularly since we

mainly work through short-term volunteers.

We want to get better at sharing learning,

dealing with change, supporting our volunteers

in the field and broadening our support to our

partners (in project management for example).

We want to grow our range of partnerships to

cover more diverse technologies, geographies,

cultures, languages and types of partner. We

want to empower our members to lead their

own long-term international partnerships.

20. Sustainability:

As we work around the UK and the world, we must consider the effects of our activities –

particularly on the environment but also on our people, partners, knowledge, systems and funds.

We want Engineers Without Borders UK to be sustainable. Unlike the alternative, nothing bad comes

from being sustainable – which is reason enough to commit. But, because of the particular work we

do, we must practice what we preach in terms of sustainability to set an example to all our partners.

We will task a cross-cutting team of volunteers to help us become a sustainable organisation, asking

them to look at our activities and impacts (and their interactions) over time. It will also be

important to explore more sustainable funding models with our partners and with new partners.

17. Academic Partnerships:

We will introduce a new kind of partnership

that builds on our progress in engineering

education: we will formalise our collaborations

with university engineering departments and

educational institutions as academic partners.

We will establish systems to support academics

in achieving shared goals – such as including a

global dimension in their teaching – and work

closely with them to make sure that every new

engineer can become a ‘global engineer’.

21. Membership

Engineers Without Borders UK is its members. Members are our hands and feet, and heart and soul –

they define our living culture and give us life. Members inspire the organisation and we inspire them.

Membership isn’t just something we do, it’s how we do what we do; we want to engage people in both.

Our members want to defeat poverty. They want to use engineering to help people and to build a

better world. Their energy, creativity, idealism and desire to learn have already proven to be powerful

in driving sustainable development – given the right technologies, opportunities and networks.

Members contributing to partners is how we create change. Our new organising philosophy of massive

small change and our new structure are designed to empower members to empower partners. Our

partners engage with our members first and foremost, and they work with members as members work

with them. Our members give us our credibility and are our national and global presence.

Who and what our members are therefore define what the organisation is. If our members are

engineers who understand international development then we are engineers who understand

international development. If our members are mainly new engineers who want to change the world

then so are we. This means that there is a need for us to invest in our members’ vision, understanding

and skills to make the organisation happen – as someone might learn a trade. This is particularly

important because members become our volunteers, decision-makers and leaders, and also because

our membership is always receiving newcomers, mainly through intakes at universities each year.

22. Volunteers One of the special things about Engineers Without Borders UK is that we are run largely by volunteers.

Indeed, members and volunteers may even be considered synonymous. When we place a volunteer in

an international partner, seek a volunteer to make a brochure, or ask a volunteer to lead a national

programme, we are trading in motivation and learning. Aspects of technology, capability, opportunity

and leadership combine – and the change happens best where all of these converge for an individual.

We mobilise members to become

volunteers because their motivations

coincide with ours. Even at a very

practical level they can see how their

work fits into a broader narrative –

into the bigger picture. Volunteering

with us is exciting, whether in the

field or finance team; and people

work for free because it is exciting.

This becomes an important test of

whether something is worth doing.

We engage with new volunteers as

peers and tend to work people-sized

in small teams, not big hierarchies.

Volunteering with us is personally relevant – and we try to make it so. It is part of the personal journey

being made as people learn about engineering and international development. Not only can they learn

new skillsets and new mindsets, but they can learn about themselves too. Leadership skills develop

very quickly. Empowered by a sense of belonging and progress towards big challenges, volunteers can

find a new self-confidence and self-worth – a new purpose even. They find an expression for their

desire to change things, and begin to lead beyond their usual authority because they are engaged in

something bigger. They learn how to create an emergent outcome, solve problems, manage projects,

work with people, and consider complex issues. Everyone learns to be an engineer and a leader.

Membership promises:

We want to be more explicit about our commitments to our

members and the role they play in shaping our organisation:

1. We promise to involve our key, niche membership of

young engineers at all levels of decision-making.

2. We promise to prioritise support to our members as they

empower and equip themselves and each other.

3. We promise to always demonstrate our belief in the

effectiveness of empowered and equipped engineers in

defeating poverty, across all our programmes.

Under this new strategy, we will work to make more explicit this learning which has, so far, only been

implicit in our plans, approaches and strategies. This sort of personal professional development is a

worthy end in itself, but the reason we now choose to invest in it directly is because it is so

fundamentally connected to our capacity to mobilise and to the relationship we have with our partners.

Investing in the vision, understanding and skills of our members who volunteer so that they become

influential engineers and leaders wherever they go is how we create massive small change.

23. Membership groups:

Members coming together in groups has been

our fundamental building block since we began.

Membership groups give a sense of connection

to our cause, and a method for mobilising.

Our main membership groups are currently…

University branches

Regional professional networks

Communities of practice

… and we can see that others may emerge in

the near future, particularly to cover every

level of engineering education in the UK:

academics; researchers; further education

colleges and university technical colleges; and

even schools through junior membership.

University branches operate as independent

organisations registered as university societies.

They affiliate with us, so that we can behave as

one organisation. Under this new strategy, and

through our regional teams, we will continue to

allocate more resources to our branches and

begin to explicitly incorporate their plans and

activities into our own management systems.

This won’t be easy but will help us to provide

systematic support, good governance and

greater sustainability to our branch network.

We will also do more to empower our other

membership groups to have the same

independent spirit of a university branch,

taking on their own aims and activities rather

than just continuing to support ours.

The highest risks and greatest opportunities of

our membership groups are in their own

international partnerships. Under this new

strategy, significantly more resources will put

towards sharing learning about partners,

international development and good practice. If

we get it right, then we will see a step change

in the number of international partnerships we

can take on and the level of support we can

offer to their efforts to defeat poverty.

Membership system:

Telling stories about our members, their

journeys and their work with partners will be a

priority. These stories will sit alongside our

statistics and give a flavour of the massive

small change that our members create.

Our membership database, like any database,

is only as good as the data that’s in it. We will

continue to invest our membership database as

a core function of the organisation. It is as

important to us as, say, our finance function

and should receive similar levels of investment.

Our membership systems will allow us to make

more explicit the journey that our members

have taken with us, and where they have gone

on to in their lives and careers – our ‘alumni’.

By comparing a member’s experience with us

with that of others, and our ideas of what

mindsets and skillsets we should be offering,

we can help to identify learning opportunities.

We will also be able to accredit their learning,

whether informally or formally. By keeping in

touch with our alumni and following their

career paths, we will be able to understand our

impact and to respond quickly to changes or

new ideas – particularly in the latest thinking

on engineering and international development.

Volunteer groups:

We have a number of dynamic groups of

volunteers that power our organisation:

National Executive team

National teams

Regional teams

Committees of membership groups

We have invested a great deal in training and

supporting these volunteers, and will continue

to do so. But under this new strategy we will

go beyond transactional training and empower

our volunteers with transformational training

as well to explicitly develop leadership skills.

24. Journey

There is no clear, single path for an engineer to become effective in international development, but we

know that learning and experience are vital. Engineers Without Borders UK has learned – through

experience – that engineers need the skillsets and capabilities of a technologist, problem-solver,

development practitioner, manager and leader. Engineers also need the opportunity to discover

different mind-sets so they can think at a new level, see things differently and value complexity. In

short, engineers are good at things – but they need to be good at people too.

Our activities explicitly share skillsets. The way we do things implicitly provides the ‘activation energy’

needed for new mind-sets – for new ways of thinking. Trying to define a clear, single path could lead to

narrow messaging and could be counterproductive, so we want to take a more educative and values-

based approach: we now want to suggest a dynamic definition of what a journey towards being an

engineer in international development might involve, and what qualities and characteristics are needed

in a ‘global engineer’ or an ‘engineer without borders’.

The learning journey towards being a professional engineer is clearly specified in the UK and it leaves

scope to learn about global challenges, sustainability and appropriate technology (though attitudes

towards these issues do need further support in some areas). The learning journey towards becoming

a development leader is therefore where we will focus efforts under this new strategy. If you are on

this journey then you are a member of EWB-UK, regardless of your age or whether you’re an engineer.

Particularly at its beginning, at the start of the learning curve, the journey should feel like you’re going

on an adventure. The journey will hopefully never end, but when you’re further up the learning curve

you should feel like you’ve got ideas to share, changes to make and something to give back. Overall,

our small contribution will be a sort of leadership factory or a talent pipeline where we help everyone

to make their own way, to determine their own development and can go on to create massive change.

One of our fundamental roles

will be to facilitate and curate

members’ journeys to support

the journeys of our partners so

that, together, they can co-

create change and support

each other towards shared

goals. This means members

and partners collaborating to

share skills, explore other

cultures, contexts and world

views, and to more effectively

work to defeat poverty.

Under this new strategy, we

will develop more learning

opportunities, more diverse

learning experiences and more

reflection on those experiences

so that people can connect and

find paths of development that

go beyond simply applying the

usual, linear solutions in every

context. We aim to enable the

same depth of learning about

people and issues as engineers

receive about technology.

A great engineer

Understanding your role as an engineer, and particularly

ethical responsibilities,

in a global society

Passion and

willingnes:

personally engaged

A good manager, then able to be a good leader

A broad understanding of the human experience, leading to

better design

An holistic systems thinker

Sharing, comfortable working with decentralised systems and knowledge ecologies

Recognising the potential impacts of engineering

practice

Embracing systems view of life (concepts like networks, self-organisation and

emergence), overcoming subtle cognitive barriers that prevent this –

particularly the paradigm of reductionism

An ability to incorporate

understanding into

engineering practice and

decision making

Ability to reflect, perform critical analysis and

evaluate decisions

throughout engineering

practice

An ability to understand both local and global

context, its influence and limitations (a

‘systems thinking approach to the

global dimensions’)

Contextual listener, able to interpret

meaning and to recognise

context

Ability to synthesise,

reflecting that tackling the

biggest challenges means connecting

many small decisions

Can connect conversations, seeking public discussion and linking issues

together rather than seeking a

settlement

Ability to learn from mistakes and from

other people's mistakes

Combining neo-

newtonian training with experience of adaptive pluralism

Incredibly creative and ingenious, in

the small and large

scales

A sense of fun and a sense of

justice

Thinking sustainably, in '4D', and

able to define the real

problem and constraints of

solutions

Beginner's mind - fresh ideas, asking

'stupid' questions, innovation

Explorering and learning constantly, particularly in unfamiliar

situations

Confident to challenge the

status quo and your comfort

zone - a questioning

attitude

Humility

Seeing and comprehend

-ing the bigger picture

25. Ideas This strategy document has set out both why we do things and the way we do things. But in preparing this

strategy many ideas have also emerged about what we do – and what we could do in the future.

New programmes and activities will include:

Greater support our international partners and for member-led international partnerships, including field staff

More learning opportunities in developing countries, particularly by growing our summer school activities

The establishment of the ‘EWB Challenge’ as one of our core programmes

A new ‘Development Leadership’ programme of transformational training aimed at our UK volunteers

Re-forming our Bursaries Programme as an ‘Innovation Hub’ for emerging ideas and to incubate them to scale

A much stronger emphasis on the ‘Global Engineer’ definition in our engineering education activities

A new book called ‘Engineering in Development’ to draw out all of our technical and development knowledge

Significantly improved support for knowledge sharing, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment

Telling more stories about our partners and the communities they support, and our members

Courses on cradle-to-cradle

Training medical technicians Increase our brand amongst professional engineers, through champions Teach engineering overseas

More work in mapping, particularly in supporting data sharing

Focus more on the marketing of appropriate technologies

Supporting learning from failure

More UK-based placements

Lego Without Borders

Internships with our sponsors’ corporate responsibility activities, like the Tata ISES scheme

Support sponsors to match-fund member-led partnerships, like in EWB-USA

Mentoring for disadvantaged students

Outreach to focus on schools in less affluent areas

Getting involved in DFID’s new International Citizen’s Service

Teaming up with the MakeSpace & FabLab movements

An exchange programme where volunteers come from partners to the UK to participate on work placements with sponsors here

Tell people about existing degree courses on development

At least one event per month per region

Train local individuals in

developing countries, perhaps

through twinning projects

Outreach for older audiences… university and workplace sessions

Work with EWB-UK alumni who have become teachers

Outreach to help address educational disadvantage

More festivals for more breadth in our outreach audiences

Support for formal credit for EWB-UK volunteering

Support practicals/labs with skilled technicians and equipment in developing country universities

Advocate for government funding and industrial sponsorships/scholarships

at universities in

developing countries

Support academics in developing countries on curriculum and teaching methods

Form an EWB-UK Academic Network, like the Professional Network – but international

Help set up EWB in developing country universities as a way to support creativity and leadership

Involve branch partnerships in EWB-UK planning and budget systems, improving management and experience

Make an engineering graduate equivalent

of the ‘Want to be an Aid Worker video’!

An EWB-UK team of teaching assistants at UK universities

EWB-UK as a recruitment agency for organisations looking for engineers

More opportunities for professional engineers to use their skills in developing countries

An EWB-UK guide on international partnerships,

to help on the very steep learning curve (teamwork,

leadership, fundraising, international development, new cultures, management)

More PhD partnerships

giving more sustainable funding for research

Break down the barriers between development and

engineering communities (where engineers don't know how to work with people and where development practitioners don't know how to work with technology) by demonstrating a new

generation of engineers is emerging and by engaging with recruiters and decision makers.

Support for refugee

academics in the UK

Partner with others to share online technical libraries

Communicate more effectively on how EWB-UK can work with different types of organisations

Help the relief/development sector with guidance on who they need for what technological skills Shift emphasis back towards the role of technology in development inside

development masters courses (after a long period where technology has been out of favour and is used just for examples of failure)

Academic secondments, in both directions, to learn and exchange ideas

Careers guide: How to be a development engineer.

Organise careers fairs with development organisations

Support partners with remote mentoring, training and problem solving

A complete library of EWB-UK project reports

Improve access to information through the website, particularly on past placements

Better sharing of success and failure stories, including

between those doing research and outreach activities

A shared database of member and volunteer contacts

Reduce the carbon footprint and ecological footprint of our events

Promote idea that change starts at home with more focus on sustainable living and systems

thinking in the UK

Build a training camp overseas and get our volunteers to train people there

More placements to help teach science and engineering in schools

Reach more universities!

Help solve the credibility issue that sustainability is seen as soft alternative to

‘proper’ engineering

Design a first year module for universities to include poverty alleviation

Work with universities to make international

development part of the syllabus in every year

Educate engineers around the world

Visit more universities to give lectures so that more students are aware of the importance of development

Run lectures for non-engineers to enhance knowledge and engineering exposure

Get involved in government policy boards, education boards and similar

Effectively monitor our impact and evaluate our successes / failures to help us all learn

Shout louder that “you don’t have to work for a charity

to save the world”!

Promote fair trade

Employ staff to second to UK universities to supervise research projects, like Developing Technologies do

More funding for member-led international partnerships

Have a minimum period for working with local partners, improves effectiveness, reporting and safety

Focus more on long-term capacity building in our partners

Support better project management in our international partners

Keep clear strategies / theories of change towards our objectives

Measure results to help make sure our work is used over the long-term

Create a Plan International for university engineering degrees! Some developing

country students can’t afford to go to university because their fees – even £50 a year – are too high.

Use Kiva to loan out money sat in our bank to help entrepreneurs in developing countries

Set up an accreditation scheme to support professional and educational

accreditation, particularly for learning/training activities and for placements – some institutions don’t currently accept it!

Establish personal development plans for members to become a global engineer, like in EWB Canada

Increase membership’s role in governance with a membership council, like in ISF France

International partnerships should be sourced by EWB-UK and awarded to branches

Help to (re-)define engineering roles, translating them to be relevant in development

More mentoring for research students by professional engineers

Build excitement towards engineering education in developing countries!

More training course on systems thinking and complexity theory

Start branches at

further education colleges - they are expanding more into international students sector and we need more

technicians involved.

Develop our knowledge management capability – a cornerstone of enabling massive small change! Useful for defining partnerships and opportunities, and for signposting to new people and activities.

Invest in monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment

so that we can tell more stories of our member’s and partner’s journeys.

Encourage international

partners to get local people to volunteer - do this through building

capacity within those organisations and ensuring that the volunteers and organisations benefit.

Thank you Thank you to our members, partners and volunteers who have contributed to our new strategy. Particular thanks go to: National

Conference 2010 and 2011 participants; the 2010-11 and 2011-12 National Executive teams; 2010-11 and 2011-12 Board of

Trustees members; 2011 Branch Presidents and Training Ideas Days participants; Outreach Conference 2011 participants; and

returned Placement Volunteers, particularly from 2011.

We would like to thank the following people for their time and support for developing our new strategy: Prof. Peter Guthrie OBE; Dr.

Matthew Harrison; Edward Bickham; Prof. Robert Chambers; Prof. Paul Jowitt CBE; Lord Browne of Madingley; Jennifer Schooling;

Mark Fletcher; John-Paul Wale; Jerome Bowen; Paul Astle; Vidya Naidu; Simon Trace; Dr. Yusuf Samiullah; Dr. Mike Clifford; Dr.

Tim Short; Dr. Brian Reed; Daniel Paterson; Tariq Khokhar; Edward Murfitt; Dr. Priti Parikh; Andy Mayo; Dan Butler; Prof. Charles

Ainger; Ian McChesney; Bob Reed; Anna Le Gouais; Rod MacDonald; Stephen Jones; Dr. Tony Marjoram; Kelvin Campbell; Clare

Bain; Pat Conaty; Lizzie Brown; Danny Almagor; Mike Kang; Cathy Leslie; Sunny Oliver-Bennetts; Kai Lofgren; Joe Mulligan;

Lorraine Headon; Richard Jones; Peter Vince; Richard Coltman; Chris Cleaver; and Thalia Konaris.

We are also grateful for the generous assistance of: EWB Canada; EWB-USA; EWB Germany; EWB Australia; EWB New Zealand; ISF

France; ISF Spain; Arup; SKM; and the Humanitarian Centre.

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Engineers Without Borders UK is a

massive small change organisation

that empowers thousands of new engineers

to remove barriers to development.

Through our programmes and communities,

we inspire, inform and educate people

to respond to global challenges.

We work with our partners to

find new paths of development,

and to create opportunities to harness

appropriate technology and engineering skills

to enhance people’s lives.

We unleash passionate, talented and

transformational leaders

who want a world where everyone

has access to the engineering they need

for a life free from poverty.

We want…

Engineers with a deep passion for defeating poverty

Engineers with humble, holistic and systems thinking

Engineers with a broad understanding of the human experience

Engineers with deep listening, learning and communication skills

Engineers with the ability to create, innovate and invent

Engineers with the ability to manage and to lead

Engineers with a global perspective

Engineers with inspiration

We want… Engineers Without Borders.

www.ewb-uk.org

enquiries@ewb-uk.org

Engineers Without Borders UK is registered in

England and Wales. Limited by guarantee.

Registered Company No.: 4856607.

Registered Charity No.: 1101849.